Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Fall Garden

Roses are optimistically still trying to bloom, while the flower heads of the impatients fall toward the ground, recovering from those first semi-frosted mornings.

Every morning cobwebs are still stretched across the pond, spun by some dynamic little architect hoping for a few final meals.

Yellow Jacket crawls across wilting petals, stopping to drink from a raindrop, legs twitching, hardly even time to be immobile before a hard frost, and then winter.

The bark on the cherry tree is stained with rain, mottled and ridged, like the hide of an animal I pass by every day but do not notice in its stillness.

Meanwhile, Backyard Buddha is in perpetual meditation; though I know this is the secret to his mysterious smile, I doubt my face will ever appear so serene, despite a life time of meditation....

Instead, my face is lined with old "I don't get this" frustration furrows between the eyebrows, as ancient as my childhood, when I tried so hard to "get it".

But now there are new lines, a new "I don't know but I want to find out" look around the mouth, where I find my self laughing at my self, this serious self, with greater frequency.

Thank the Buddha!

It sometimes amazes me I can still be so mind-less. Where am I?

Sort of like Where's Waldo-- he rarely seemed to have much of a mindful presence either, just sort of looked as if he was wandering through space, though maybe the hat, glasses and the ubiquitous childlike striped jersey lent an air of space cadet....

But a stroll around the garden brings things into better perspective, a shift in perspective, looking at things from ground level, or looking up into a jumble of leaves and noticing how the shifting layers are like thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts, and before we know it, we think we are our thoughts!

Must we be so serious about this?

The garden says don't give it another thought, just use your belly to breath, your tongue to taste, your nose to smell, your eyes to really look, your fingers to discover texture, heat and cold, your ears turned like a foxes ears, listening even for what moves within the heart space....

And then consider your place, your feet on the earth, your head sky-ward, like a mountain, you are upright, aware, a place for the 10 thousand things to rest, and then take flight again.

The Blue Lotus Seed: A Buddhist journal

Welcome to The Blue Lotus Seed, a space created to offer the Dharma, through poetry, art, musings and discourse. The lotus is a water flower that begins in mud and sediment, rising through murky water as it pushes to reach the surface. The flower pod, tight and drab green, slowly opens to the sky. In Buddhist lore, the lotus is a symbol of our humble beginnings, and what waits for us, as we come ever closer to realizing our Buddha Nature.

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A Buddhist Priest with The Blue Mountain Lotus Society, Order of the Dragonfly, I began seriously studying Buddhism June of 2005. After I received the Precepts, things moved very quickly. I committed to the 3 year Priest Studies
Program directed by Sensei Anthony Stultz of Harrisburg, PA.
In May of 2010, I finished my course of studies, and I am now a fully ordained Osho.
All opinions expressed in this blog are my own humble reflections of the Dharma, however deluded, and my most sincere hope for Upaya, the skillful manifestation of the Prajnaparamitta, inspired by Bodhidharma, Shinran, Dogen Zenji, Bankei and all of my excellent teachers, both past, present and future, all alive in the indestructable, unborn, immutable Buddha Nature. May all beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, May all beings be free!